Free Driven by Dean Murray

apparent damage.
    Before
Imastious could respond to the opening provided by Geoffrey's failed
counterattack, Geoffrey launched a blow of force of his own, one that
came from the center of his mind and pushed everything outwards.
Geoffrey's thoughts rippled as the blow ripped its way up towards
Imastious' beachhead, a three-dimensional mental wake like a
submarine moving through water at impossible speeds.
    Geoffrey
didn't just expect this effort to succeed, he knew it would, just as
he knew that the strength of his conviction was part of what had
transformed this blow into an irresistible force. Geoffrey tensed up
in anticipation, but although his effort succeeded in uprooting the
black weed of Imastious' probe, it nearly did so at the cost of
Geoffrey's sanity.
    There
was more to Imastious' tentacles than Geoffrey had realized. They
didn't end cleanly as he'd thought, instead they expanded into
millions of feathery lines that had burrowed more completely into his
mind than anything he'd ever seen before.
    The
force of Geoffrey's effort was too strong to be denied, but the act
of ripping the roots out tore huge furrows inside of his own mind and
left wounds that bled energy. Geoffrey tried to create a new shield
over the top of the damaged portions of his mind, but Imastious had
already reacted and now there were a dozen probes exploiting the hole
in his defenses, expanding out into portions of his mind in a
violation that turned Geoffrey's stomach.
    The
deeper Imastious' probes went into Geoffrey's mind the slower their
progress became, but they were still progressing. Geoffrey needed a
new kind of mental construct, something he could create and let loose
without having to constantly monitor it.
    Nothing
he'd ever done before quite fit the bill so he acted on instinct and
what was left of the reflexes he'd developed before losing his
memory. Geoffrey envisioned a swarm of mental insects, a silvery
metallic horde that multiplied at an exponential rate. The swarm
became a plague of biblical proportions in less than a heartbeat and
then scurried upwards.
    Geoffrey's
newest attack bit into Imastious' probes, devouring them from the
bottom up. The deepest tendrils of Imastious' attack were consumed
almost instantly, but the thicker roots closer to the surface of
Geoffrey's mind proved more resistant, growing back nearly as quickly
as they were being destroyed.
    It
was disheartening to see just how much stronger Imastious was, even
inside the peripheries of Geoffrey's mind. It would have been enough
to make Geoffrey give up but for the fact that his insect constructs
seemed to be doing more than just attacking Imastious' constructs.
They were somehow feeding off of Imastious' work. They weren't
increasing in numbers, but they were healing the damaged portions of
Geoffrey's mind with the sustenance that they'd stolen from
Imastious.
    Under
other circumstances it would have been better than a stalemate.
Geoffrey could feel the jagged, brittle edge of his concussion fading
away into something he could work with, but it was too little, too
late.
    Imastious
pushed harder, cracking open another section of Geoffrey's mind with
another blow of force. This time the tendrils that Imastious inserted
into Geoffrey's mind didn't grow roots. Instead they each fractured
into dozens of angular constructs that scurried from place to place
like spiders with nothing but a dark, nearly invisible, gossamer
thread connecting them back to Imastious.
    Geoffrey
had seen this attack before, but his exhausted reflexes were a
heartbeat too slow in responding to it and a sticky spray of apathy
coated everything inside his mind. The insects were still worrying
away at the thick roots Imastious had put into his mind; they were
hundreds of thousands of points of fire that were slowly trying to
burn away the feelings of lassitude, but even they couldn't stand
against the constructs that were now ranging freely through
Geoffrey's mind, dousing his will to fight